Central pension plan NPS finally gets a boost The ‘New’ NPS     Measure: Improve incentives for distributors. Has been recently implemented.     Impact: Was required. But won’t be enough, need consumer education to build volumes.     Proposal: Increase fund management fees with an option to lower later.     Impact: Under consideration. But finance ministry unhappy with increase in costs.     Proposal: Relax the norms to appoint more fund managers to increase distribution.     Impact: Unlikely. At...

Poverty is concentrated in the Informal sectors of the Indian economy, with people in these occupations amongst the worst affected from the pernicious Licence Quota Raid Raj. This is illustrated by the sarkari controls that trap the livelihoods of some of our nano entrepreneurs - cycle-rickshaw owners and pullers - in a web of illegality. Cycle-rickshaws are an inexpensive mode of commute in many cities, and do not cause any...

India's economic growth has added over seven million new jobs every year for almost a quarter of a century. Workers have seen their wages - adjusted for prices - rise by nearly 3% a year. Poverty rates among wage workers and the self-employed have fallen. Going forward, with swelling numbers of new entrants - and more women entering the job market , as was the case during east Asia's rapid...

  -PTI Experts from the University of Oxford and Indian researchers are looking into the impact of climate change policies on India's informal economy, and to diagnose ways of reducing CO2 emissions and improving jobs.  By and large the global response to climate change has ignored informal economies and yet the larger part of India's economy and almost all its jobs are informal and not directly affected by government policy, a university release...

-The Times of India   Inequality in earnings has doubled in India over the last two decades, making it the worst performer on this count of all emerging economies. The top 10% of wage earners now make 12 times more than the bottom 10%, up from a ratio of six in the 1990s. Moreover, wages are not smoothly spread out even through the middle of the distribution. The top 10% of earners make...